David デイビッド : Eldar Army
by David on 2019-11-16 (Sat) 17:52PMThis Eldar force is the start of my own original craftworld army - El Ìlm Craftworld. They are purists in every sense of the word, with creams and whites combined with traditional runic script. I'm currently working on creating my own runic script transfers for the canopies of my growing jetbike squadron.
▲ Here's the elf in charge so far - a lowly warlock! The basic army colour scheme is white and beige, with charcoal grey weapons and bronze helmets. Gems are mostly blue, except weapon gems which are red. I've kept silver out of their colour scheme, and the metal would be reserved for special, intricate stuff by their craftworld.
▲ They may not be a terrifying foe to face in battle (entirely my fault!), but, by the gods, they will look good on the battlefield! :) Here's part of the warlock's guardian squad, decked out in their finery. Snappy dressers, eh?
▲ The problem with such a sparklingly pristine colour scheme is how the heck do you make camouflaged scouts?! I took ages trying to find a colour scheme to reflect the unearthly qualities of their camo-cloaks, but in the end I had to settle for grey cloaks with flecks of silver. sigh... These are very old scout models, which is why they are all carrying lasguns rather than the cooler sniper rifles.
▲ I rather enjoyed painting these war-walkers, but they took AGES to get to a clean white!! The guy in the middle is preparing to do battle with a wraithbone sword, which is probably not all that clever, really. But it looks nice. I like the contrast of seeing such bright whites against the grimdark greys of the battlefield terrain. I painted up all the weapon options for these guys, which can be swapped out on delicate pins.
▲ See? Even the craftworld's aspect warriors are kind enough to stick mostly with the uniform colours! And then go and spoil it with flashy red helmets.
▲ These are older striking scorpion models, which I actually prefer over the more clunky newer ones. These ones look deadly and well-posed, but also very thin-limbed and frail. I have to re-base these guys, though...
▲ UPDATE Oct 2012:
Here's the first of the jetbike squadron, with the first of the runic water transfers. It's nothing super special in terms of decoration, but it makes it look a little more religious (?) and ornate, I think.
▲ UPDATE Nov 2012 : Let the galaxy burn!!! I haven't used them yet, but these Fire Dragons certainly look hot enough. Simple colour scheme, and unfortunately with the yellow helmets the Exarch doesn't really stand out much. Still, I'm looking forward to melting something soon...
▲ UPDATE Jan 2013 :
"Hurrah, we don't have to walk anymore!!". After trying out the runic transfers on the first of the jetbikes, I decided it was time to paint the first of the grav-tanks. The underside is the normal Dheneb Stone colour, and the rest was painted with a matt white undercoat and shaded carefully down to Space Wolf Grey. After careful blacklining with Black Wash, I applied stripes of the runic transfers on the front cowling. Now I know the colour scheme works, I can be a bit more adventurous on the next one!
▲ UPDATE Feb 2013 :
I finally have another Troops choice now. These are five old metal Dire Avengers, which are not much different from the newer plastic sculpts except for the mouth grills, lack of shoulder pads and shorter weapons. Nice dramatic poses on them though! I really have to get some more of these, and perhaps an exarch, before they'll achieve much on the battlefield.
▲ UPDATE Feb 2013 #2 :
El Ìlm Craftworld finally has its first Farseer ready to step out onto the battlefield. This guy has proven very useful in recent games, vastly improving the shooting phase, so I thought it was about time to paint him up. I envision this Farseer as being older than most on the battlefield, and therefore closer to the time when his spirit will join the craftworld's infinity circuit. I painted him with smokey grey eyes and plenty of handpainted runic script (approx 2mm in width!!), so as to suggest he is more attuned with the spirits - his battlefield role will be to guide the Wraithguard and Wraithlords of El Ìlm Craftworld. I like this model for the one reason that he's obviously not concerned with fighting in the conventional sense - his powers do the real damage. "I doom you..."
UPDATE 2019:
Wow, well it's been quite a while since I posted up any new pics for this army, but I have been slowly plugging away at it, and I'll be posting up some of the latest pics shortly, not least of which is the Avatar.... at long last!!!
▲ After 25+ years, this lovely Exarch was the first of his Swooping Hawks unit to get freshly painted, with the army colours (white, beige and gold) mixed with the traditional blues of these flying warriors. I painted this one up to celebrate the completion of this great Swooping Hawk Shrine model!
▲ As promised, here's a pic of my fiery Avatar of Khaine! I went for plain black for the armour, with what hopefully looks like molten glow coming from the gaps in the armour. This guy's a daemon, basically, so I went mad on the 'otherworldy-ness'.
▲ Possibly the glow effect is clearer from the side, and I even made his sword glowing with heat, and his topknot a fiery mane too!
▲ I'm not a huge fan of this model, because I think it's a little tall to look fast and sleek enough. But I painted it up anyway, with the same runic transfer strips added on each side of the front cowl. Love the base though, from Dragon Forge, I think!
▲ The club has a new eldar-themed board full of terrain now, all 3d printed. Couldn't resist posing this photo! See terrain article here...
7 Comments :
Vlad 2012-10-05 (Fri) 20:25PM
Some great looking miniatures there! How did you do the writing on the bike? It looks too precise to be freehand.
PS. Great base on the bike.
David 2012-10-05 (Fri) 20:35PM
Well, I could lie and say it's freehand! :) But it's actually an A4 sheet of water transfer paper. Found an eldar runic alphabet online, and then it was easy to print out on the computer. Strongly recommend it!
Bases are from Dragon Forge, I think. I wanted something a bit special, since they're so big.
Mike 2012-12-07 (Fri) 9:40AM
Glad to see someone who plays Eldar! From what I understand they weren`t that good in 5th edition, but in 6th they got pretty good. Excellent paint-job by the way :)
David 2012-12-07 (Fri) 9:45AM
They might be an excellent army in the new edition, but I'm certainly not the excellent general they need! But they're great fun to use (making the pew-pew noises as scatter lasers open up, and zooming noises as the jetbikes go 60"!), and they look real pretty. Dead, usually, but pretty.
Olivier aka Kielran 2016-08-31 (Wed) 4:51AM
J adore !
I like it. Very smart.
I use the gold too for my ulthwë's ost
Ryan 2022-01-02 (Sun) 11:05AM
I love the color scheme. What are the makes and names of the charcoal and cream colors you used?
David 2022-01-02 (Sun) 11:49AM
Thanks, Ryan! The charcoal colour was Charadon Granite with a black wash over it, then highlights with medium grey (sorry, I forget the name). The cream colour was Rakarth Flesh with a sepia wash, then smoothed again with rakarth flesh. I think?!
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